A Florida nonprofit played a central role in the covert extraction of Venezuelan opposition leader and newly named Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, who had been in hiding for nearly a year.
Bryan Stern, founder of Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue, described the high-risk mission — dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite — in an interview with NBC6. Stern said Machado is “by far the highest-profile person we have ever rescued,” and that the operation carried extreme danger due to the Maduro regime’s surveillance and pursuit.
Machado had been evading authorities for 11 months while under a travel ban. Her daughter accepted the Nobel Prize on her behalf in Oslo, where Machado later made her first public appearance in nearly a year.
Stern said the mission was funded by private donors — “not the U.S. government” — and involved disguising Machado to evade facial recognition systems. Maduro’s security forces, he said, referred to their pursuit as “The Hunt for María.”
Stern recounted meeting Machado “at sea,” where she boarded a fishing boat in darkness and rough waters before transferring to another location and ultimately flying out through a “friendly country.” He confirmed that Curaçao was used as a transit point, though Machado never passed through its immigration.
Machado vowed to return to Venezuela despite the risk.
Grey Bull Rescue operates as both a nonprofit and a for-profit entity assisting governments and citizens in danger.
